Neon Genesis Evangelion: Second Chances
by ourobourosrat
Summary: For those who ever wondered what happened next, instead of just "what happened?" in End of Evangelion. Asuka and Shinji survive after Third Impact. Expect philosophy, Evangelion-style strangeness, and ridiculously short chapters.
1. Second Chances Chapter 1: Falling Man

Asuka's bandaged hand came up to trace Shinji's cheek, listlessly, then fell to her side once more. Shinji gasped. All the strength went out of his arms, and they fell away. His eyes traced her face for any sign of life, or any movement. There was none, except that damnable dead eye and that empty bandaged socket. He broke down, shuddering, gasping, all the tension leaving his body. Tears began to pour from his eyes. Oh, if only she would say something! _Say something, please, please, so I don't feel alone. So I can forget_. Shinji's tears fell on her face and chest, hot and wet, fat with despair.

"Feel sick," Asuka said, voice hoarse and tired. The salty red-orange liquid of the sea of souls lapped at her feet, and Shinji collapsed onto her chest in exhaustion.

-Falling Man-

It came without warning, a thin band of yellow against the black, cloudless sky. The mountainous crater came alive with light. A hesitant tendril touched the boy and girl sleeping by the shore, flickering back and forth as if unsure what to make of these two alien creatures.

The boy woke first, blinking and rubbing sleep out of his eyes. He looked about in confusion, then his eyes focused and he remembered. He noticed the light spreading across the crater, and his eyes lit up. "Look, a sunrise!" Shinji said, shaking Asuka awake.

Asuka stirred, spitting sand out of her mouth and shifting around in her cherry-red plug suit. She glared at him. "Gott sie dammt," she grumbled. "Let me sleep." She wrinkled her nose. The air smelled like blood and sweat.

Shinji stared at her. "But . . ." He fumbled for words. He fiddled with the collar of his white shirt. "It's the first sunrise," he said, "you know, the first one after . . . I just thought it might be important."

"I don't care," Asuka said. "This isn't my world." She shifted onto her right side. "You just stuck me in it."

Shinji held his hand over his eyes to cover them and watched the sun crest the lip of the crater. "I'm sorry," he said. He looked over at her back.

Asuka muttered. "Stupid Shinji." She furrowed her brow. "Had to be stuck with you. Rest of the world turned into LCL, and you yanked me out because you were lonely. Haven't changed at all. Still an idiot." She bit her lip.

Shinji stared at her. His shadow spread across the small of her back. "I'm sorry."

"What do you want, sympathy?" Asuka said, sneering. "Instead of apologizing all the time, why don't you leave me alone?"

Shinji stared at the sand. "Do you want to be alone?" he said. He began to trace patterns with his right hand.

"Yes," Asuka growled.

Shinji sighed. "You already are." He fell back onto the sand, staring up at the orange sky. "I'm sorry." He closed his eyes.

Asuka didn't respond. Minutes passed. Shinji continued to stare at the sky. Asuka sniffed. A tear slipped from beneath her eyelid and fell on the white sand. She bit her lip.

"You're not strong enough," Shinji said. Out of reflex, he added, "I'm sorry."

"Goddammit," Asuka said between tears. "Stop with the fucking apologizing!" She sat up. "For a guy who just turned all but two human beings into orange pea soup, you're pretty damn pathetic."

Shinji kept staring straight up. "I know," he said.

"Bastard," Asuka said. "Why did you bring me back?" Tears fell to the ground, fewer now, swallowed up and burned away in the heat of anger. Anger had saved her in the past. Humans were nothing but creatures of habit.

Shinji put his hand on his chest and fiddled with his white shirt. "You really want to know why?"

"Don't play the dummy with me, Third Children." Shinji glanced over into Asuka's glowering brown eyes. She had inched closer.

"I needed someone to remind me that I was still human," Shinji said. He smiled, a bittersweet smile. "It's funny how easy it is to forget what that really means."

Asuka snorted and jerked her head away. "You're just like Kaji. All you want is to use me to your own benefit." Her voice was tainted with bitterness.

Shinji's eyes widened. He remembered –

_"You're nothing like Kaji. You're so dull."_

– so what had happened? Something had changed. Had he changed that when he brought her back? He had only wanted – he had gotten what he needed. He squinted. "I'm sorry."

Asuka used her good arm to pull herself along the sand away from Shinji. "Sanctimonious asshole."

Shinji stared at her. Silence stretched between them like cobwebs spread by a dying spider. The red sea lapped at the shore. Red, like blood. Like Ayanami's cold gaze. Shinji looked out over the sea. "I wonder what they think of us, cut off and mortal," he said. "If they feel sorry for us."

"I wouldn't know," Asuka said. Her voice stung Shinji's ears, burned his heart with venom.

Shinji gripped the sand. An old quote from their English lessons sprang to mind. _Prick us, do we not bleed? Wrong us, shall we not revenge_? "But you hope they don't," Shinji said. "Don't you, Asuka?" Her sudden flinch told him the answer. Guilt flushed through his body, but he bit back an apology. She deserved it. She deserved it. "No, she doesn't," he said. He crawled to Asuka's side and put his hand on her shoulder. Asuka tensed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Liar," Asuka said.

Shinji reared back. The memory came back to him, all too vividly –

"_You don't need me. Anyone will do!"_

– and he was nearly overcome by it. "I am not!" he said.

"You wanted to hurt me," Asuka said. "And you enjoyed it. Are you satisfied, Third Children? Does it make you feel better to know the Second Children can be hurt too?" She continued to face away from him, shifting to prevent the sand from getting into her plug suit.

Shinji flexed his right hand. "No," he said. "No, it doesn't." He almost stopped there, but something inside him pushed hard against the silence, so he continued. "I – I saw, Asuka. I saw what happened. In Unit 02. Uh . . . to your mother. I'm sorry. For not being there."

Asuka lay still. "What . . . what did you see?"

Shinji lay back and looked out over the sea, at the crucified statues of the Eva series. "I . . . I saw a lot. Maybe everything. But mostly I saw myself. Who I thought I was, and who I really was. I learned a lot of things. A lot of things I guess I should have already known." He paused. "I need you, Asuka. I don't think I ever recognized that fact before."

"Sure you did, in those little jerk-off fantasies you had in that little hospital room," Asuka said, voice dripping with bitterness.

Shinji seized up, shuddering. "Don't tell me you . . . saw that . . ."

"I'm not sure. I think . . . I was asleep," Asuka said. "But all the same, I remember you doing it. Bastard." She sighed. "What did you do to me?"

"I – nothing, I swear. I just wanted someone to be near me."

"You did something to me. Things in my head . . . aren't right. Sometimes, I'll think about something . . . and the thoughts won't add up, like there's something else in my head, just outside my perception. Sometimes I'll think about Rei, and it won't be me thinking about her – it'll feel like I'm thinking about _myself_." Asuka shivered. Her leg shifted back and forth in the sand.

Shinji stared at nothing. "I wish I knew," he said. "I don't understand. I just needed someone to keep me company, to make me forget how alone I felt."

"As if that's even possible," Asuka said. "People are people because they're alone. Isn't that why they all turned into LCL? So they wouldn't have to be people anymore, wouldn't have to be alone?" Her shoulders twitched. "It hurts being alone, Shinji. I want to be part of that sea. But you won't let me."

"I'm sorry." Shinji couldn't think of anything else to say.

Asuka sniffed. "I hate you, Shinji."

Shinji glanced at her back. "I know," he said. He stood up and started walking towards the edge of the crater.

-Neon Genesis Evangelion

SECOND CHANCE:

I'm afraid.-

Shinji stared out over the rocky edge of the crater. Red sea, black rock, and white sand as far as the eye could see. The earth was angry and sad, and it would be this way for a long time. "Almost like a mother would be," he said. "Her children have gone away." Shinji scanned the horizon. He was feeling remarkably calm. He looked up at the charred spike of metal jutting out of the ground next to him. His eyes caught on the white cross that hung upon it, suspended from a wayward nail. "Misato . . ." Shinji ran his fingers along the edges of the cross. "Are you out there in that sea, too? Are you proud of me?" He knew he would not get an answer. He would never get an answer. He had only gotten an answer once before –

_"You did a very good thing today, Shinji. You saved the city. You should be proud."_

– and it was so long ago –

_"That was a grown-up kiss. We'll do the rest when you get back."_

– how could he know she still cared for him? If she still remembered him? She was either dead or just one part per trillion of LCL. He had killed everybody. His own weakness destroyed Asuka – but she wasn't dead anymore. He didn't even know if she had died. When Third Impact occurred . . . what happened to him? In that grand momentary flash of omnipotence, he remembered the Sub-Commander mentioning something about him becoming God. Was that true? Had he become God? "I am the resurrection, and the life," Shinji said, softly. He shook his head. It didn't fit. It wasn't right. He wasn't that arrogant.

Shinji held his hand up in front of his face. He didn't feel all that powerful. If he were totally honest, he felt like shit. He felt horrible, Asuka hated him, and everyone was dead. Everything in that thought was normal, except the last part. It meant all he'd done was make things worse. Shinji leaned against the spike. "I've spent all my life muddling through." He sighed. "Even Eva . . . it was just a way to get people to notice me. So I wouldn't feel so alone. And then, when I stopped . . . nobody cared about me. I was just . . . existing." Coasting through life, in the least offensive way possible, the laziest way possible, so detached from the rest of the world, they might as well have not even existed. He wondered who was the judge in the end. Was it God or was it Shinji who had ultimately found him lacking? Shinji stared up at the sky. "I made a choice," he said, "when I came back. I told you I'd live instead of just existing. Am I living? Nothing's changed. Things have only gotten worse – for me and for Asuka. Especially for Asuka. She didn't want to come back. She wanted to be a speck in the sea. And I took her away from that, out of selfishness." He slipped down onto the ground, resting his back against the spike. "Tell me, God, do I still deserve to live? Even after what I've done?"

There was no answer. Like Misato, Shinji knew he would not get an answer. The white cross rattled against the metal spike in the wind. Shinji stood up, facing away from the sun, and began the slow walk down towards the seashore. Asuka still lay there, back to him. Shinji stared at the back of her head, at the bandage encircling her skull. He remembered the sickening lurch of metal sliding through living tissue, and her scream before Unit 02's internal power finally failed. He wondered if he'd given her back her eye when he brought her back to life. He stopped a few feet in front of her.

Asuka rolled over to face him. "Do you know," she said, "why my eyes aren't blue anymore?"

Shinji wanted to ask her if that meant she had both eyes, but he doubted it. It was just the phrase. "No," he said. "I guess it's my fault somehow."

Asuka sat up, still looking at him. "I think it's because I died. I died, and there wasn't enough left of me when I came back to remember I had blue eyes, and like those parts of my memory that don't fit, I think you just winged it and you gave me the eyes you remembered the best." She stared at his feet. "I think you wanted a happy memory to look at when you woke up instead of a sad one."

Shinji sat down across from her. He looked at her eyes. Asuka stared dully back at him. He remembered –

_"Get up, Shinji."_

_"Guess what? You're not dead yet, so you might as well make the most of it!"_

– those eyes. Those wonderful, brown eyes that had smiled at him, and kissed him. His last happy memory. One that he'd barely even noticed until it was already over, and he saw the doors shut. Moments later he'd felt the elevator shake before the doors opened, and he knew. She was dead, and he would never see her smile again. Shinji turned away. "I think I picked a sad one anyway," he said.

"Too bad," Asuka said. She didn't smile. She only dipped her head, acknowledging him. "You must feel sad."

"I suppose," Shinji said. At least she doesn't hate me, he thought. It was just a momentary thing. "I'm used to it."

"Just like you are to being alone," Asuka said. She shivered. She shook her head and her red hair – her fiery, bright red hair – whirled and twisted around her face like coiled snakes. "Just like me."

Shinji stared at her, saying nothing. Asuka's red hair. The two red knobs of her sync-headset. Her red-orange plug suit, crossed with black bands on the legs and back.. Her brown eye. The white bandage around her left eye. The faded, beige gauze wrapped around her right arm. The red sea. The white sand. The dark brown, nearly black rocks. "You belong here," he said at last. "Just like I do."

Asuka tried a smile. It looked more like a grimace, as if she'd forgotten how to do it. "I want my momma," she said. "I miss her." Shinji moved to sit next to her. She fell on Shinji's shoulder.

Shinji stared at her red hair as it splayed across his shoulder and his chest. This was why he wanted her here. He wanted her here for moments like this. Because, just for a moment, here, right now, she made him forget he was alone. He wanted to save this "other," this foreign body, and protect it from harm. He was not alone when he was a protector. He put his arm around her slim waist. He knew what to say, for this moment alone, that would protect her. "So do I, Asuka," he said. "So do I."

And, sitting next to each other, alone on the beach, they waited for the tears that never came. They sat there like that for a long time, and neither one of them spoke and neither one of them moved.


	2. Second Chances Chapter 2: Holy Names

Asuka reached down and cupped her hands together, drawing up some of the orange liquid. She stared at her reflection in it, then splashed herself with it. Her nose wrinkled. "It still smells like blood," she said.

Shinji lay next to her, staring at her, memorizing her every movement. "I'm not surprised," he said. "It is blood, in some strange way."

"Disgusting," Asuka said. "We sat in blood for hours at a stretch, and they never told us."

"Look at it this way," Shinji said. "Would you have sat in LCL for two whole hours straight during the sync tests if you had known we were swimming in the blood of the mother of humanity?"

"Of course not! That would be revolting!" Asuka let the LCL drip off her hands, watching every drop.

"Exactly," Shinji said. "We'd never have done it if we knew."

They had similar conversations all day. This was their way of avoiding talking.

-Holy Names-

Asuka stared out at the red sea, Shinji standing by her side. Her brown eyes focused on the decomposed white hand reaching aimlessly towards the sky. Red sea, red sky. Red thoughts echoed through her mind –

_"You'd do this for her, but not for me? I'm not important enough for you to save . . ."_

_"Momma! They made me an elite pilot! I'm supposed to keep it a secret, so I'll only tell you, Momma!"_

_"Sync ratio zero . . . I can't be the Second Children anymore."_

_"My Unit 02 is the first real Evangelion!"_

_"You were protecting me all along!"_

_"I am not a doll."_

– She touched her bandages, running her fingers across the rough fabric. "Am I his doll?" she whispered. She glanced over at Shinji. He was staring out over the sea, eyes troubled. Asuka stared down at her chest. "He . . . needed me? Why?"

Shinji looked over at Asuka. She's been broken, he thought. Zeruel pushed her to the edge, and those white Evas shoved her off it. Her mother . . . Eva-02 . . . they killed her so suddenly, just after Asuka had discovered she was still alive. _Would I have been the same, if it had been Eva-01?_ Shinji turned back to the sea. _Her mother was not as strong as mine_, he thought. _The people who built Eva-02 were more cunning. It took more strength to break the barriers between mother and daughter than it did mother and son. If I could have given her more time with her mother . . . if I had known how . . . I should have done it. I was selfish_. "Asuka," he said. She didn't respond, lost in her own thoughts. "Asuka," he said, louder. She blinked, then looked at him with that eye. For a moment, Shinji saw her, dead, sprawled across ground stained red like blood, maggots eating out her eyes. "Are you hungry?" he said. She stopped and stared off into space.

"Yes," Asuka said, sounding rather surprised. "I am."

Shinji nodded. "Then we should start moving. It might be a few hours before we can find any food." He looked out over the expanse of the crater. "Over that ridge over there," and he pointed to where they had woken up earlier in the day, "all there is is wasteland. We won't look over there." He turned to look in another direction. "We have maybe a twenty-mile walk or more to get to the other side of the crater, I think. Third Impact decimated Tokyo-3. The only chance we have of eating today is to hope the suburbs didn't get wrecked too badly."

Asuka stood up. "Stupid Shinji," she said. "You never could pilot Unit 01 right."

"Not everyone was the Infallible Asuka," Shinji said. "We didn't all spend our whole lives training in Eva."

Asuka walked up to stand next to him. "Not everyone was the Invincible Shinji, either," she said. "We didn't all have that miraculous sync ratio to fall back on when our skills failed us." Her words were coated with bitterness.

Shinji flushed, looking away. "It's not my fault," he said. "She loved me."

Asuka reddened. Her ego burst like a half-full balloon, already popped and barely fit to call a balloon. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't know."

"You were in the hospital," Shinji said. "It was Zeruel. I saw your Eva chopped to pieces. And Rei . . . Rei used that N2 mine. I couldn't bear it. I went back to . . . well, I suppose I thought I was going back to save the world from Third Impact, but really I wanted to get revenge after what he did to you." He paused, remembering. "I was winning, too. I could have beaten him. But I ran out of internal power." Shinji stared off at the faraway edge of the crater, the memory coming back to him in vivid color –

_"Move! Move! Move! Move! We have to stop the Angel! Move! Move! I have to save my friends!" _

_"I'm just so tired of it all . . ."_

_"Mother?"_

– Shinji smiled. "It was . . . exhilarating. I know exactly how you felt fighting those Evas. I experienced it. To feel your mother, the first person you recognize, your first love, by your side – no, inside you, breathing when you breathe – for a brief moment, I experienced Heaven. I came back to that memory, again and again. That was what I wanted." Shinji looked over at Asuka. She was barely paying any attention to him. Shinji's face fell.

"Did you get what you wanted?" Asuka said. "Sure doesn't look like you did."

Shinji looked up. "No," he said. "I got what I wanted. I didn't like it."

Asuka looked at him in surprise. She turned away just as quickly. "Too bad," she said. Her voice was flat, like a bad recording of someone speaking.

Shinji shrugged. "It's nothing new," he said. He looked out at the crater's edge. "Come on. We'd better start heading for the other side if we want to eat anytime soon." He started walking, Asuka following a few moments later. He tried not to think too hard about that –

_"We'll need a leader, then. And since I'm the smartest person here, the leader will obviously be me!"_

– but he couldn't stop thinking about her. Shinji closed his eyes, sighing, and wished to have the old Asuka back, if only in some small way.

-Neon Genesis Evangelion

SECOND CHANCE:

Who's There?-

They walked in silence, passing by upturned cars, blackened rubble, and the eerie grinning Evangelion corpses. The red LCL sea rhythmically lapped at the shore. Since most of the crater was full of LCL, they were taking the long way around. This gave them the advantage of being able to look to see if anything could be salvaged in the areas surrounding the crater left behind from Third Impact. They found a wrecked electronics store, with radios, CD players, and televisions. As they expected, none of them worked this close to ground zero. Asuka grabbed a CD player, just in case. Shinji was stuck carrying it in his pocket. Every so often, he would stick his hands in his pockets, accidentally brush against the hard plastic case, and take his hands out. It felt like his SDAT.

"What happened to all the water?" Asuka said, startling Shinji.

"What?" he said.

"I said, what happened to all the water?"

Shinji stopped walking, exhaled, and looked at the sea. "I think Impact evaporated all the water for . . . a long way around. The only water we might find is melted ice. Or maybe, if we're lucky, a warehouse full of bottled water. But that's not likely. We'll just have to get what liquid we can however we can." He looked at the sea.

Asuka said it first. "We might have to drink LCL," she said. Her shoulders fell. "We might have to swallow the souls of the rest of humanity to survive."

"We'll do what we have to," Shinji said. "No more."

"Always worked for you in the past, hasn't it?" Asuka said. Shinji flinched, but there was no venom in the words, just a statement of fact. "Position the target in the center, pull the switch."

"You weren't in Tokyo-3 then," Shinji said. "How did you . . . ?"

"I don't know," Asuka said. "It just sounded right. Like I said, my memory's fucked up."

"I'm sorry," Shinji said.

"You can't fix it," Asuka said. "So let me worry myself to death over it." She sighed. "Wait. No, I forgot you always worry about everything." She stared at him. Shinji stared back at her, pinned by those brown eyes. Asuka closed her eyes, folded her arms across her chest, and leaned her head back, letting out another long sigh. "Well, unless you're Jesus Christ, I don't think you can fix me. So don't act like him and try to shoulder the blame for every single thing that goes wrong." Shinji stared at Asuka. She blinked. "What?" she said.

"What if," Shinji said, "maybe I am the Second Coming? Or something like it?"

Asuka's mouth fell open. She didn't say anything. All she did was stare at him. After a while, Shinji started to fidget under her stare.

"What?" he said.

"Jesus Christ," Asuka said. "That explains a few things." Asuka's mind reeled. Your father is your model for God, she thought. That makes too much sense for it to be coincidence.

Shinji looked away –

_"I think I hate my father."_

_"I think we were destined to meet, Ikari Shinji."_

_"Sometimes it requires a level of trust akin to a leap of faith, but I believe in him."_

– Asuka's stare dug too deep. "I'm no messiah," Shinji said.

"Christ at the Second Coming isn't a messiah, either." Asuka said. "He's a sword-wielding lunatic."

Shinji gestured around him. "Look around, Asuka. Does it look like the Second Coming is ever going to come to a world like this?"

Asuka bit her lip. "No." She rubbed the gauze on her right arm. "Maybe we've got it all wrong. Maybe you're the Antichrist."

Shinji shivered. "Fuck," he said. "Wouldn't that just be the perfect end to all this?" He clenched and unclenched his right hand in a fist. "It makes too much fucking sense," he said, collapsing to the ground. "Goddammit."

_If he's the Antichrist_, Asuka thought, _then what am I?_ She reached up and touched the bandage over her left eye. Her hand fell to her side. "False," she said. She sat down on the ground and stared at nothing.

"The opposite of truth," Shinji said. _Me_.


	3. Second Chances Chapter 3: Optimistic

A boy sat by the sea's edge, idly swishing his hand around in the reddish-orange liquid. Shinji stared into the LCL. I wonder if I'm touching my mother, he thought. If they're all one body, I suppose I am. But how do I know it's her I'm really touching?

Asuka looked over at him, eye half-open. "Antichrist," she said. "The embodiment of all evil. Should have known all along." She lay on her back, her bandaged arm lying across her chest.

Shinji's lips pressed together. "Just because it fits doesn't mean it's right." He pulled his hand out of the LCL. "It could just be coincidence."

Asuka snorted. "Coincidence. It doesn't exist."

Shinji stared into the red sea. "I hope not."

-Optimistic-

"We need to find food," Asuka said. She stood staring at the mutely grinning statue of one of the Evangelions. "Did you know that Eva is German for Eve?"

Shinji sat nearby, staring at the same statue. "No, I didn't. What does that have to do with anything?"

"I'm not sure. I think Rei might have had the answer," Asuka said. She looked away from the statue, staring off into the horizon, a rocky expanse of black rocks jutting up against the red sky, broken only by the left half of Lilith's decaying face. "Let's get moving."

Shinji stood up. They began walking.

"I hated my father," Asuka said as they walked. "He left. Everybody does. But he was the first. He left my mother. And then he left me."

"He never cared," Shinji said.

"Of course he did," Asuka said. "I reminded him of my mother."

"Oh." Shinji sighed. "Can you see how much further?" He gazed out over the ruined landscape. "All I see is rock, beach, and sea."

Asuka shrugged. "It's there somewhere," she said. She stopped, exhaling. Asuka turned to face Shinji, her one visible eye riveting on his face. "It's faith. I'm not sure I'm alive. I do know I can feel some things, like hatred and anger and sadness. I convince myself I can put each foot forward. That's enough." Her brown eye swiveled to look out over the sea. "It has to be out there somewhere."

"But you don't think so," Shinji said. He took a step towards Asuka. "You think it's just a delusion."

"I can accept a delusion if it makes me feel good," Asuka said. Her voice betrayed her arrogance. Shinji watched her face. Asuka's mouth pressed into a thin line. "I can, and I will." She turned away and started walking again. Shinji hesitated, then followed.

They walked in silence. Shinji tried to keep pace with Asuka. He failed. Desperation pushed Asuka onward, nipped at her heels like a rabid wolf, inciting ever larger strides. Her breathing quickened, became hoarser. Her hands clenched. Her eye darted from side to side. It has to be here, Asuka thought. I won't let it not be here. I need it.

"I brought food up first," Shinji said, breaking the gulf of silence that spread between them. "Shouldn't I be searching?"

"I'm not going to trust my stomach to the Antichrist," Asuka said.

"Hey, that's coincidence," Shinji said, voice rising. "For all we know, I could be God."

"God could never be that indecisive," Asuka spat. Her voice was hollow and breathless.

Shinji stopped. He said nothing. Asuka paused to look at him. Shinji stared at her solitary brown eye. Asuka turned and kept walking. Shinji watched her go, silent. He looked out over the sea of souls. Rei stared back at him. He let out a shaky breath. He nodded. Rei stood there motionless. He swallowed. When his eyes opened again, she was gone. Shinji turned back to Asuka, swiftly dwindling on the horizon. He paused, looked back over the sea. There was nothing there. He began running after the red figure in the distance. He didn't look back.

"Asuka!" Shinji gasped for air. "Wait!" He stumbled and fell face-first into the sand. The impact knocked all the wind out of him and left him sprawled out on the beach, coughing.

Asuka halted. She looked at him in confusion for a moment. "You –?" She just stood there and stared at him.

"You haven't healed yet," Shinji said when he got his breath back. "You need someone to help you." He stood up, rubbing his back. He brushed the sand off his clothes. "Whatever I am, I'm the only other person here who can."

Asuka looked at him. The confusion faded to mere indifference. "I don't need your help," she said.

Shinji stared at Asuka. He was exhausted. "I won't run," he said. "I can't." He sighed. "I'm sorry."

"For what," Asuka said. Her tone was too flat for questions. "You haven't done anything."

"Exactly. I haven't and I can't." Shinji looked Asuka in the eye, searching for some spark. Something alive. "I'm sorry."

"You can't even help yourself," Asuka said, then turned to keep walking. "You're a fool."

Shinji's fists clenched. "Then you help me," he said, talking just loud enough for her to hear. "Help me."

"Help you save yourself from the nothing you've always been?" Asuka's tone held no emotion. Just cold indifference. "I can't help."

Shinji inhaled sharply –

"_You don't need me. Anyone will do!"_

"_Pathetic."_

– and lunged at Asuka, crashing into her chest. They fell to the ground with a thud. Shinji's eyes were wide and staring. Asuka looked up at him, confusion spread across her face. Shinji pulled his face close to hers. "Help me," he hissed. His hands clenched her shoulders.

Asuka closed her eyes. "Save yourself," she said. "I don't want to be here. And definitely not with you."

Shinji's hands twitched. He moved to strangle Asuka. Her brown eye locked gaze with him. His hands stopped, just brushing the ridge of the plug suit. He stared at her. Then his hands started moving again. He convulsed. He grabbed her head in his hands and kissed her. Asuka made no attempt to stop him.

-Neon Genesis Evangelion

SECOND CHANCE:

She said, I'm more afraid of happiness.-

"You're sick." Asuka's voice was flat. Her tone allowed no disagreements. She lay on her left side, idly rubbing her chest. The plug suit felt rubbery and cold to the touch.

Shinji sat, huddled, a distance away. He stared down at the sand. "I'm sorry."

"That's all you ever do. Can't you react some other way?" Asuka sighed. "All you ever do is apologize."

"It's my fault," Shinji said. "I killed everybody. They're all a puddle of goop now. And I'm alone. You're here, but you're not you. All I did was make the pain worse."

"I thought you wanted the pain," Asuka said.

Shinji made a frustrated, strangled noise. "Not like this. I don't know what I wanted anymore. But I didn't want it to hurt this bad." He hugged his knees.

"It always gets worse," Asuka said. "Forgetting doesn't change reality."

"'I can accept a delusion if it makes me feel better,'" Shinji said. "You said that."

"I was wrong," Asuka said.

"You would never say that." Shinji lifted his head up to look at her back. Red and black crisscrossed, like the sky and the sea. "Not the Asuka I knew."

Asuka ran her hand across the white sand. "I _am_ the Asuka you knew," she said. "It's not my fault if I don't live up to your expectations."

Shinji let his hands fall to the ground. "I can't win," he said. "I always screw up something."

"It's your fault we don't have any food," Asuka said, helpfully tossing more wood on the already-massive bonfire of Shinji's vanities. "And why I'm blind in one eye. It's all your fault." Her voice never rose or fell. She stated simple fact.

Shinji sighed. "I'm sorry, Asuka."

Asuka snorted. "You're never really sorry. Otherwise you wouldn't keep making the same mistakes."

"I can't stop myself," Shinji said.

Asuka rolled onto her bandaged arm. She stared at Shinji. "You have no control. You just let things happen. And you wonder why nobody praises you. You don't stop the bad things and you're never there for the good things."

"Why are you telling me this, Asuka?" Shinji said.

"I don't know," Asuka said. She rolled onto her back and traced the outline of her bandaged hand. "I just am. It's probably something you made me do anyway."

Shinji lowered his head. He looked up at her from underneath his eyebrows. "I'm sorry."

Asuka murmured something inaudible. She idly ran her hand through the sand. "I wish we had found some food."

"Sorry," Shinji said.

Asuka's hand paused. "Stop that." She continued tracing patterns in the sand.

Shinji stared at her helplessly. "I don't know how," he said.

"Learn," Asuka said. "It isn't hard."

"I caused Third Impact," Shinji said. "I'll be apologizing for that for the rest of my life."

"Only to yourself," Asuka said. "Nobody else will care."

Shinji turned to face her, his legs shifting around on the beach. "You're hungry, tired, and confused," he said. "You just want something to make you feel human, don't you?" His voice was soft. "I destroyed your trust in yourself, didn't I?"

"How can I trust my judgment when my memories aren't mine, Shinji?" Asuka stared at the red LCL. She rested her bandaged arm on her knee. "They killed me, those white demons killed me, and instead of Heaven, I'm stuck here on an empty shell of a planet – with you." Her bandaged arm clenched at the air. "I can't remember my favorite color. College is a fuzzy blur. There are gaps where there shouldn't be. I played the violin, and I don't remember when I started." She bit her lip. "Not only that. I remember the feeling of LCL on my naked body as I floated mindlessly in a tank somewhere. I remember drinking beer and getting drunk. I never did those things. That wasn't me."

Shinji looked at her. His brown hair fell over his left eye, obscuring it from view. "I . . . I'm sorry."

"You're a fool, Third Children. A fool." Asuka stood up. "Stupid Shinji." She looked down at him, then out at the sea.

Shinji cocked his head, staring at her. "What are you doing?" he said.

Asuka said nothing. She darted away, diving into the sea of souls. She broke the surface with a splash. Shinji watched her, paralyzed from the suddenness of it all. He stared for what seemed like an eternity. She didn't come up for air.

Shinji never moved.

There was a splash, a ripple in the water, and Asuka was carried out of the water. Asuka gasped, greedily gulping down air. Her savior held her tightly, carefully. Shinji's eyes locked with hers. Asuka lay still in the firm embrace. Her unbandaged eye stared up in a vacuous, terrified recognition.

Shinji stood up slowly. He watched as Asuka was set down to stand, unsteadily, on her own feet. He did not smile. He only stood there, helplessly trying to think of something to say that made it all make sense. Finally, he said the only thing he could.

"Hello, Rei."


End file.
